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December 16, 2005

Client references - the future is here

I was listening to a story about how the San Francisco Chronicle is losing out on subscriptions to the online world despite having a Pulitzer Prize winner on its books and a truly great editorial team. It is looking at podcasting as an alternative or additional income stream. The idea is to add colour to existing stories. Fantastic idea.

Can you imagine the impact it would have had on you if Nichola Ross Martin had recorded the conversation she had with the Jones' following the Arctic Systems decision and had been able to upload that to the Internet for everyone's benefit? Her quip:

"
On leaving court, I said to Geoff and Diana that I sincerely hoped that
I would never have to see them again! That is in the hands of HMRC, and
their decision to appeal to the Lords."

was classic. Would you not want to hear those words at this historic time? How much more value would that have added to your appreciation of the case? To what extent would it have demonstrated that high powered tax advisors are human too? How much additional business could Nichola have pulled in from that simple, spoken comment? We will never know.

Which is why I will be recording a very important customer case study - very soon. This case will talk about the implementation of a SaaS solution at a firm of CAs. It will not be your 'canned brochureware over voice' but a real conversation with a real user who is trying to make real money from this decision.

The firm is taking a risk and I'd like to know about how that coloured its decision. This is called referencability and is one of the things you do as a matter of course when selecting software. With a recording you can save it for now or another day.

You don't have to do a part of the work almost always required in discovering alternative software. You've already got the customer story. That usually comes part way through the sales cycle. Now you can have it in advance. That's very different. If needs be you can follow it up yourself. You're already saving money in the procurement because you're not wasting time with a vendor with which you don't have a good fit or feel. And it's free, as a service to you.

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